Letter handwritten and signed by Thomas Jefferson while President.

Washington: no publisher, 1803. Autograph. Good+ condition. Unbound. Signed by Author(s). Quarto (4to). One page letter, folded several times, with breaks in the folds, and heavy ink staining. Attractively framed with a small black-and-white portrait of the President. The letter, listed in Vol. 41 of "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson" (PTJ) reads "Washington July 18, 1803; Dear Sir; This will be delivered to you by Mr Barnes who being personally unknown to you, has asked of me a letter of introduction, as he proposes before I return to the seat of government, to visit Philadelphia, with a view to his re-moval there. He has been so long an inhabitant of that place that he can hardly live elsewhere. As he has been the subject of two former letters, I will add only that he is one of those grateful + correct men for whom one never regrets of having done any thing. Accept my friendly salutations and great esteem. [signed] Th. Jefferson. [addressee's name on the bottom edge] Gen'l Muhlenberg". According to PTJ this letter is "endorsed by TJ in ink on verso" and while there is one third of an attached leaf folded behind, and a remnant of the original red wax seal present, there is no additional autograph on the verso. Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg was collector at Philadelphia Harbor starting July 1802 John Barnes from National Archives: John Barnes (ca. 1731-1826) emigrated from England to America about 1760. He was a tea merchant and grocer in New York and Philadelphia, relocating to the latter city when the federal government moved there in 1791. Barnes remained in Philadelphia until 1800, when he moved to Washington to serve as a contractor with the Treasury Department. TJ had known him for many years and appointed him customs collector at Georgetown in 1806, a position Barnes held until his death. He was TJ's banker and commission agent, helped him manage the investments of Tadeusz Kosciuszko and William Short, and supplied him with groceries from 1795 until TJ's retirement (Cordelia Jackson, "John Barnes, A Forgotten Philanthropist of Georgetown," RCHS 7 [1904]: 39-48; MB, 2:927; The New-York Directory, and Register, for the Year 1790 [New York, 1790], 11; Clement Biddle, The Philadelphia Directory [Philadelphia, 1791], 6; Washington National Intelligencer, 14 Nov. 1800; TJ to John Peter Muhlenberg, 10 Oct. 1802, 30 June 1803 [DLC]; JEP, 2:44, 45 [15, 17 Dec. 1806]; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 17 Feb. 1826). .